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Israel needs a mortal enemy, and Iran fits the role perfectly - expert

Iran Materials 8 October 2013 12:24 (UTC +04:00)

Azerbaijan, Baku, Oct. 8 / Trend, S. Isayev

Israel doesn't want better ties between the U.S., and Iran, observer of Middle Eastern affairs and research scholar at The University of Texas at Austin, Saif Shahin told Trend.

"Israel needs a mortal enemy, and Iran fits that role perfectly," Shahin said.

Last month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged President Barack Obama, during talks at the White House, to keep up tough sanctions on Iran until there is "verifiable success" that it had addressed Western concerns about its nuclear program.

Netanyahu noted that Iran has said it is committed to Israel's destruction and that recent overtures that it is willing to negotiate on its nuclear programme must be backed up with action.

Obama told Netanyahu it was important to the security of both nations that Iran not possess a nuclear weapon. Israel views a nuclear armed Iran as an existential threat and has not ruled out military strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities.

"Netanyahu will do his best to keep things that way, ratcheting up anti-Iranian and perhaps anti-Obama rhetoric in the run up to the US midterm polls next year," Shahin believes.

"He will have a lot of support from Republicans, who are already virtually at war with Obama after last year's defeat in the presidential election," he said. "The interesting thing to watch for would be how the pro-Israel Democrats play this out."

Barack Obama became the first US president since the 1979 Iranian revolution to speak with an Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, in a telephone conversation.

Iran's foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in an interview to IRIB News a few days ago that the majority of Americans say that Iran's nuclear issue should be solved peacefully.

He mentioned a recent poll conducted in the US, according to which, 75 percent of the Americans believed in diplomatic and peaceful solutions to resolve the nuclear dispute.

"It is while several months ago, the American nation had different views," Zarif said.

Referring to the speech of Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the UNGA, Zarif said Netanyahu and other warmongers were to ruin the chance of reaching an understanding.

Iran would not let them reach their goal and meddle in the process of nuclear talks, Zarif said.

The aim of the Israeli premier and other warmongers is not to let the talks reach breakthrough, said Zarif stressed "we don't let them achieve their goal."

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